Related

China's CNOOC Ltd said Monday it has agreed to pay $570 million for one-third of US firm Chesapeake Energy's shale oil and gas drilling project in the American states of Colorado and Wyoming.The investment in the 800,000-acre (323,749-hectare) project in two basins is the second deal between the firms since October and signals greater efforts by both energy-guzzling countries to develop the hard-to-reach resources.

Skeptics are too quick to dismiss the potential expansion of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to other shale areas in the United States and around the world.
Based on early setbacks and the slow rate of progress outside Bakken and Eagle Ford, they doubt whether the revolution can be replicated. But shale entrepreneurs are investing heavily to prove them wrong.
So far, the North American shale revolution has been confined to two states, Texas and North Dakota, at least as far as oil is concerned.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A group of U.S. drilling states, seismologists, academics and industry experts issued guidance Monday in a frank new report on handling human-induced earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing or the disposal of fracking wastewater.The 150-page report, produced by the StatesFirst initiative, represents perhaps the most candid discussion on the topic since tremors across the mid-continent — including in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Ohio — began being linked to fracking and deep-injection wastewater disposal around 2009.

China’s CNOOC Ltd. has sketched out designs for a massive new liquefied natural gas project on the British Columbia coast, cementing plans for an energy link between Canada and the fast-growing Pacific market roughly one year after its acquisition of struggling Nexen Inc.

By Bret Jensen:Domestic energy production has exponentially increased over the last few years due to fracking technology. No place has ramped up energy production more than the Bakken reserves. Numerous E&P outfits with shale acreage/production have seen their shares doubled, tripled or more in the past twelve to eighteen months, and it is certainly harder to find bargains now than it was in 2010.

Chesapeake Energy filed a lawsuit against its co-founder and former CEO Aubrey McClendon on Tuesday. The US oil and natural gas company has accused Mr. McClendon of theft of confidential company information towards the end of his tenure at Chesapeake. Chesapeake alleges the information was used to establish a new oil venture that came in direct with the Oklahoma-based company. According to a civil complaint filed in the Oklahoma County District Court, Mr.

Indian Oil Corp., the nation’s biggest refiner, agreed to buy a 10% stake in Petroliam Nasional Bhd.’s Canadian natural gas fields and a planned export project.
The agreement with Petronas will also give the Indian state oil refiner the right to 1.2 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas per year for two decades, New Delhi-based Indian Oil said in a stock exchange filing today. It didn’t give a value for the deal. The company lined up a US$900-million one-year bridge loan to fund the purchase, three people familiar with the matter said last month.

China National Petroleum Corp., the country’s biggest oil company, is seeking its first stake in the U.S. as Chinese explorers with US$40-billion of cash try to join an energy renaissance unlocking billions of barrels of crude.
“We are currently studying” investing in U.S. oil, Jiang Jiemin, chairman of the state-run company, said Monday at the National People’s Congress meetings in Beijing. Domestic rival China Petrochemical Corp. last month agreed to buy stakes in an Oklahoma field from Chesapeake Energy Corp. for US$1.02-billion.